


Beauty Thrives

by blibberinghumdiggory



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts Eighth Year, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I might carry this on but i dont know, Moving On, Post-War, Short, for the aesthetic, introduction, kinda uplifting, probably going to be really gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blibberinghumdiggory/pseuds/blibberinghumdiggory
Summary: Despite the horrors faced in the battlegrounds the students must return to complete their Wizarding education and learn how to move on.





	Beauty Thrives

Judging by the grandfather clock it had just gone six in the morning.  The world seemed oddly silent without the bright call of birds to break it.  The wind hummed, but she felt it more than she heard it.  The cool brush of gasping air raising bumps on her bony moonlit knees with the gift of a small comfort in the eerie silence of the morning that felt like night.  The thin black curtains fluttered and danced and draped softly across her ankles.  She couldn’t feel her fingers and her head felt heavy with drowsiness, along with something intangible and disconcerting.

She had stopped trying to sleep altogether.  Every attempt plagued her mind with her worst fears; memories that felt like ice cold fingers on your shoulder and rope around your wrists.  Blink too long and her breath was stolen from her lungs.  She had stopped crying too.  She had thought that maybe she had stopped altogether.

This was not true.  She knew that.  Because she hadn’t stopped caring.  In fact, Pansy Parkinson probably cared more than anyone else did.  She cared about the pain in a way that she couldn’t justify entirely except that she cared simply because _it hurt_.

She blinked, and it stung her eyes.  The stars began to fade behind the cloth of dawn and for a moment she couldn’t feel the weight on her head.  Though it didn’t lift, it was almost as though she had forgotten about it for the smallest fragment of time.  And that was all she needed.

Without aim or purpose or reason of any sort, determination pooled in her stomach, it ricocheted up her spine, and spread through her veins like the life she lacked.  Without destination, her feet swung from their perch on the window ledge and landed with a muffled pat on the floorboards.  Without a poke nor prod from any peer or sponsor, Pansy Parkinson rose, and she grinned, and she started again.

/////////////

Seamus Finnigan watched the other boy cup his hands around the mug of coffee and regarded him closely.  He had known the boy for years.  He knew the exact colour of his eyes and where the dimples were in his cheeks.  He knew all his smiles and the almost-invisible mole just under his ear.  He knew of his quick wit and crooked nose.  He knew his worst fears and best stories.  He knew this boy and yet he wanted to know more.  He wanted to know it _all_.

Dean Thomas crossed his legs under himself as he sat on the kitchen countertop and bit his lip, staring at the floor littered with scrunched up newspapers and flat pack boxes.  “Are you going to go?” Dean had asked, nodding vaguely in the direction of the living room, where two near-identical envelopes lay torn open, the contents leafed through and left.  Seamus didn’t know the answer, so he shrugged and told the boy so.  Dean nodded, apparently satisfied by the lack of proper response.

Two days later, Seamus was watching the boy paint.  He couldn’t see what he was painting from his position on the floor, but he wasn’t really watching the paint.  Light streamed in through the windows that didn’t have curtains yet and Seamus’s eyes fixated solely on Dean, watching, seemingly unaware of doing so.  The light softened his features and contrasted against his dark skin and hair.  Occasionally, Dean tilted his head and bit his lip and furrowed his brow.  And Seamus would smile, and his breath would be gone.

He snapped from his reverie when he heard his name being called, having forgotten to be pretending not to watch.  Splotches of pink blossomed on his cheeks and he blinked up at Dean.  The boy gave him a small smile and took a deep breath like he did when he was about to say something he’d been thinking about for a while.  Then he drew his eyebrows together again, but this time he looked at Seamus and not the painting.

“I think I’m going back,” Dean had said simply, and just as simply, Seamus’ mind had been made up.  He smiled back at the boy, then down to the book that he wasn’t reading.  “Yeah, I think I am too.”

//////////////////////////////

Luna Lovegood knew many things.  She was a library, a cacophony, a mess of knowledge.  But if she knew one thing, it was that beauty thrives: in green forests of intertwined canopies and vibrant beds of shrubbery; in the moth-eaten sky and moonlit gardens; in high ceilings and polished marble floors; in the feel of cloth on skin and bitter cold in your breath; in the click-clack of heeled boots and belt buckles; in layers of settled ash and dirt and in the crumbling walls of our battlegrounds; in empty chairs and salt tears and forgotten photographs; when the flowers bloom, drown, freeze, burn, shrivel, bud, fall; when the last song is sung and the triumph fizzles and dies; when there is rubble at our feet and rivers in the mud on our cheeks.  Beauty thrives so it is not yet the end.

The song she was humming was an old one and she could not recall where it was from.  It felt soft and melodic, and it tasted like sugar.  The sky hid behind a veil of deep grey clouds and large drops of rainwater popped on her bare shoulders and sprinkled her smiling face.  Her toes were cold and the pebbles underneath the arches of her feet were rough and slippery.  The river went up to her ankles, but water licked up to the brim of her trouser legs.  Her hair clumped together under the rainfall and darkened to a shade closer to brunette than her usual dirty blonde.  She smiled up at the sky and tilted her head back to let the rain redden her nose and wet her lashes.

Beauty thrived, and so it was not yet the end for Luna Lovegood.

/////////////////////////

After the battle, Neville Longbottom didn’t leave Hogwarts and he didn’t plan to any time soon.  The castle was no more than a ghost of what it once was.  He felt as though he’d walked through a picture on one of the pages of his History of Magic book.  Wreckage and dirt and debris scattered across the fading memories of a happier place.  Nothing but dust.

That night, he slept in the Slytherin common room; they were more than happy to share, and the space was practically undamaged as most of the battle had taken place above ground and away from the dungeons.  Strangely, Neville had found that to be the moment he’d realised they were all just kids.  It felt like an obvious realisation.

Nobody had slept, some tried but were jolted awake by their own minds.  Memories of green light slamming into walls behind them.  Losing their friends in the maze of corridors.  Tears escaping, gasping breath, their heads screaming at them to hide and their bodies, their hearts throwing spell after spell.

Neville sat up with them; leading songs and watching strange creatures as they swam past the windows, trying and failing to name them all.  Finding as many sets of wizard’s chess and gobstones as they could.  Reading to the younger ones and delving into secret supplies of sweets from home that had been hidden under beds and in the backs of drawers.

Many went home to their families, grieving but safe.  Just as many had stayed to help with the rebuilding, for most there wasn’t much waiting for them at home anyway.  Neville’s grandmother had stayed for a while too, assisting Madam Pomfrey in patching up anyone who hadn’t gone to St Mungo’s and hating every moment but refusing to do any less.  After a few weeks, Neville had managed to persuade her to go home and rest, and begrudgingly she had gone, loudly proclaiming that her grandson was a war hero, you know.

Time had passed with heavy work.  Old magic was difficult to tame, but eventually the castle had allowed them to help.  For hours a day they moved weighty stone with intricate magic, rebuilding and soothing the castle, scrubbing and polishing and fixing until slowly Hogwarts became one again.  They’d even managed to extend the Great Hall and fit in a whole new tower.  After a lot of thinking, Neville had campaigned with the Slytherins to encourage as many students to return for the new year as possible.  There was more than enough space, and all were welcomed.  It was not an easy feat, but they pulled it off, and now 50% of eighth year and almost 80% of the rest of the students were returning, as were most of the new applicants for first year.

Just under two weeks before term started, Draco Malfoy walked into the school grounds.  There had been plenty of work left to do.  The new Phoenix Tower wasn’t quite finished, the entire West Wing needed painting, and the library was to be reorganised.  All 132 volunteers were working tirelessly to get the school finished before the feast and so any help was met with open arms.

Both Neville and Draco had been assigned to reorganise the same section of the library.  Neither spoke, but they worked together quickly and efficiently in sync, wordlessly handing each other books and getting on with the task at hand.  The immense boredom the job provoked had Neville gradually finding himself nattering on to the boy beside him.  Nonsense really, everything and nothing about the rebuilding, stories of people messing about and all the work they’d done.

One day, Neville realised that they’d spent half an hour discussing the benefits of using shrivelfig liquid rather than bubotuber pus when treating small wounds before he’d even acknowledged the achievement that Draco had actually conversed with him.  They frittered away days talking about inane things, keeping away from delicate subjects.

When they started to work on the last remaining parts of the Phoenix Tower, it seemed that there were some things that Draco couldn’t resist asking.  Neville could tell that it took a lot of the boy’s pride to ask, but he seemed genuinely curious, and so he answered them all as best as he could.

“What’s it like in Gryffindor?” “Where’s Potter now?” “Are Muggles really that different from us?” “What is the true meaning of a Hufflepuff?” “Why is it called ‘Hogwarts’?  It’s such a terrible name.”

Something akin to a friendship formed between the two, it wasn’t quite caring or trusting yet, but it was honest. 

When McGonagall had called him up to her office Neville had accepted the place in eighth year without hesitation.  After the battle, Neville Longbottom didn’t leave Hogwarts and he didn’t plan to any time soon. 

/////////////////////

Fenrir Greyback had torn ugly, violent slashes across her face.  At first, she tried to cover them up, her eyes blurred with tears, swollen and puffy from the wounds, but cosmetic charms only went so far.  There was nothing she could do to hide such large and unpleasant scars without resorting to drastic measures.  Mrs Brown offered to pay for them to be professionally removed, as eager to get rid of them as the girl thought she herself was, and had failed to hide her displeasure when her daughter said no.

Lavender Brown always listened to her conscience; Professor Trelawney called it her inner eye, and as a young girl, she had liked the idea of having ‘the gift,’ and so believed her, but as Lavender grew up she realised her heart was simply rather vocal.  Of course, she still believed every word the wide-eyed woman said.

When she’d had a crush on Ron Weasley, her heart told her to go get him and she did.  When he broke her heart, it fixed itself and told her that tears were a sign of power, not weakness, and the pain would make her stronger in the end.  When she was 17 the world fell apart and her heart screamed at her to fight and she did.  When Fenrir Greyback held fingernail blades to her face and told her not to move, her heart yelled no, and she rolled as someone stunned him and ran when she could.  Her scars were war paint, her face a story; and stories were there to be told.

It had taken time to get used to.  Stark red lines, unpleasant and twisted and cruel.  Unmissable.  Of course, they would fade a little with time, but there was only so much she could do.  They changed her face.  Soon, seeing pictures of herself before it all happened seemed strange, she looked younger, sillier, weaker before.  Gradually, Lavender started to like them and the story they held, the story of a true Gryffindor.  She’d smile when she caught sight of them in the mirror, she’d laugh                                                                                                                                                                                             when people tried to pretend they weren’t staring, she’d gladly talk about them, and after a while she realised that her heart was right; the pain _had_ made her stronger in the end.

/////////////////////

“Do you love me?”

“Will the grass grow green in the summer?  Will the sun rise again in the morning?  Will flowers bloom, alive once spring finally rears its head?  Will I taste rain on my tongue when the nights turn cold?  Will snow fall this Christmas?  I hope so, my darling, but one cannot always be certain of such things.”

Harry sighs.  Maybe Ginny was right; maybe Simon is a bit of a prick.

Harry closes his eyes, breathes, and sets about packing his things.  Simon doesn’t stop him, and it doesn’t take long at all.  A spare toothbrush, a small pile of clothes, some books; Harry shrinks everything down and shoves it into his pocket.  Maybe he hadn’t really been holding out for Simon as much as he had thought.  Still, the pain is a burden.

He leaves Simon’s flat in still and awkward silence, deciding to take the short walk back to Grimmauld Place instead of slicing through the invisible barrier to ask if he can use the Floo.

It’s almost September, and Autumn is already lacing itself into the trees.  Stained leaves flutter around the city in thin cascades and a small thrum of excitement settles somewhere in Harry’s ribs at the sight.  The bitter cold forces a flush to his cheeks the moment he steps outside, and for a fleeting moment, that bouquet of unravelling emotion is forgotten as the flurry of vibrant city motion blankets him.

As he wanders down the streets of London, Harry feels defeated.  Angry, yes, stupid, yes, sad, yes, conflicted, oh hell yes; but it’s defeat that follows him out of Simon’s flat.

They had been dating for two and a half months.  Longer than most of Harry’s past relationships.  Simon worked at Gringotts.  He had seemed nice, if a little talkative.  Simon liked slam poetry and told everyone he was an artist.  Harry liked him.

For a few weeks now, Harry has been trying to find a reason to stay in London, a reason to ignore the letter on his kitchen table.  He had hoped that Simon could be his reason.  As it turned out, he was a fool.

After the war, Harry felt lost.  Hermione had been busy working with the Wizengamot and then left to find her parents, and Ron barely ever had a moment’s rest from his Auror training and studying.  Harry tried to be jealous, but he was too tired.  So, he attempted to find someone.  He had thought that maybe that’s what he was missing.  But Harry’s relationships seem to be cursed in a similar way that Hogwarts’ Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers were; destined to fail.

Things with Ginny hadn’t been the same after the war.  Their crushes never progressed into love, and war changed them both in ways neither of them could explain.  In the end, the break up didn’t really change anything between them, and it was probably the best thing that happened to their friendship.

For a small period of time, Harry had opted to live with George instead of moping alone in Grimmauld Place or feeling awkward under Molly’s scrutiny at the Burrow.  Harry and George had found a small comfort in one another in their own moments of grief and mourning, but both knew there would come a time where they would have to step outside and face the world.  So, they did, and with small smiles, they went their separate ways.

He’d met Sarah in a small coffee shop in London.  At the time, he was trying to empty Grimmauld Place of the ghosts in the walls; by now he had learned it would do no good.  She was a Muggle and, while she was lovely, there was only so much of his life Harry could share with her.  She’d given up on him after two weeks.  Harry was surprised they had made it that long.

Marguerite was at Seamus and Dean’s housewarming party.  She moved like a ballerina and danced like running water.  Harry had spilled his drink on her and was absolutely mortified; she couldn’t stay still when he’d tried to mop her up because she was laughing too hard.  They’d talked all night and Harry fell a little bit in love as her eyes danced in the firelight, tendrils of dark hair escaped her messy bun and framed her coffee-skin, glowing when she mocked his terrible jokes.  She’d gone home with him and left behind nothing but the faint sweet smell of her perfume that had lain over his bed that morning.  Months later, and desperate witches still followed in his wake, quoting the infamous Prophet article that had dropped on the kitchen table the next day, and hoping for their own taste of the Saviour.

Then it was Simon, and he just wasn’t enough to make Harry stay.  No matter how hard he had tried to lose himself in other people, Harry still felt lost in himself. 

He’s five minutes away when he spots the specks of darker pavement that begin to dot around him.  Small, unavoidable splashes of water pick places on his coat and hair and shoes and directly in his eyes.  The quickly dampening pavement moves faster beneath him as he picks up the pace through the patter of rainfall.  Tires slash through sodden streets and the city blurs into lights and patches of colourful umbrellas as Harry’s glasses become useless.  The drops of rainwater blend together like ink bleeds on paper, turning his vision fuzzy and crooked.  Then he spots it, shivering now, and whispers the words that make the houses shift and he’s there.  It’s only once he’s inside that he realises he could have cast an Impervius.

Grimmauld Place did nothing to prevent the chill from seeping in.  The shadows stuck to the walls no matter how many lights he lit.  The house simply wanted to rot, and Harry had given up trying to persuade it to live again.

The rain poured in buckets outside, splashing and sloshing and sliding down the windows.  Cars beep and click and honk as they rush past.  A siren flares somewhere in the distance and the blue light flickers through the grimy windows momentarily.  Far away, lightning flashes and thunder rumbles over the city.  Harry sighs and hangs up his sodden coat.

The house was a graveyard.  Laughter echoed through the walls and wails and cries clung to every creak in the floorboards.  Shivers passed up through the kitchen table and fear rattled cupboard doors.  He kept finding dog hairs on the sofa cushions, and buttons, and odd socks, and jumpers that didn’t belong to him.  The portraits seemed to whisper of death and the fire in the grate mocked him with memories.  The place was alive with death and Harry Potter had had enough.  If he were to stay there any longer, he was sure that he too would begin to seep into the walls and be swallowed by the shadows, becoming nothing but another memory of war.  He would be welcomed into the beckoning depths of that house with open arms and doom before him.

Without it, however, he was lost.  He had nothing.  No home, no direction, no drive, nothing.  He felt like his mind didn’t exist anymore, as though he was merely pretending to be himself.  He felt empty and overwhelmed.  He felt numb to everything and yet at the same time his skull was crackling with hot feeling.  He knew what he had to do, so Harry hauled out his trunk and started packing.

The peeling paint and rusted chandeliers whispered to him as he paced his room, throwing his possessions at the bed and aiming for his old trunk.  The mirror cooed at him as he washed his face.  The snakes in the bedpost hissed his name as he crammed his books in.  “I’m leaving this place,” he told them, “and I’m leaving for good this time.”

//////////

Minerva McGonagall was an imposing and intimidating woman and Draco Malfoy wondered why she kept offering him biscuits.  Surely, she didn’t believe sugar would soften the blow she was about to deal.  He was not a child, whatever she may think, and biscuits were not going to distract him from bad news.  Well, Draco was ready for it nonetheless, though it was probably the wise choice to do as she asked and take one.  He picked the shortbread.

“I suppose you are wondering why I asked you here,” the Headmistress said.  Draco did not have the heart to tell her that he was wondering about biscuits, because he knew why he had been asked here and he knew that he did not want to hear it.  His trunk, and his – somewhat meagre – belongings were all packed.  The Hogwarts Restoration Project had been a success and Draco did not, as Professor McGonagall seemed to have presumed, hold out any hope for a place in the school again.  There was no need for a formal dismissal.  His punishments were over and now he was free (with the exception of weekly evaluation meetings) to cower back into the shadows.  He had a tight schedule to uphold in the world of shame and regret. 

Despite this, Draco nodded, deciding to let the woman have her moment.  He wasn’t looking forward to it and he did not expect the delivery to be anything but blunt and to-the-point.  Professor McGonagall did not seem like the kind of woman to waste time on senseless niceties.  Draco could hear the ticking of a clock and held onto the rhythm.  It grounded him, stretched the silence into something more tangible and easier to breathe through.  The Headmistress regarded him carefully over the rim of her teacup and pursed her lips.  Draco reminded himself to breathe and nibbled a little at his shortbread, surprisingly grateful for something to do.

She smiled sadly and leaned back in her seat, which appeared to be suspiciously less throne-like than Draco had imagined.  “You really don’t think I believe in you, do you?”

Draco blinked.  “Excuse me?” he said, bewildered.  “I will admit that I have made many mistakes, Mr Malfoy,” she said, Draco met her eyes, not quite sure what was happening, “One of my biggest mistakes is prejudice.  I’m afraid I let it cloud my judgement on a number of occasions, and for that I apologise.”

Draco had no words as one of the strongest women he had ever met became weaker before him.  He could see tired, dark rings under her eyes and blindingly sincere emotion on her face.  Without warning, he was so startlingly reminded of his Mother that water brimmed, threatening to wet his cheeks.  Angrily, he blinked it away.  “I don’t understand.”

“Then let me explain,” she said, waiting for him to look up at her and nod before she continued, “I misjudged you, Draco.  You’re a good person and an exceptional student.  For someone so young, who did so little wrong I cannot find it within myself to believe you worthy of such punishment.  The Ministry will restrict you no further.  I have taken the role of your official mentor within school and you will come to me with any problem agreed?”

Stunned, Draco could not answer.

“Agreed,” she responded for him, her strength weaving itself back into her features, “Now I have also taken the liberty of providing you with a project.  The Ministry have already approved it and I wholeheartedly believe that you are capable.  Now, your accommodation will be moved to the new Phoenix Tower, I am led to believe that you have your bags packed already so you will have no trouble with moving in right away.  The feast is tomorrow as I’m sure you know.  I expect to see you there.  If there are any problems with settling in, please let me know.”  She flicked her wrist and the doors flew open in a clear dismissal.  She began to pour herself another cup of tea.

Draco couldn’t move.  “I don’t, I don’t- “

“Mr Malfoy as you don’t seem to be forming words, let alone whole sentences any time soon I suggest you go and enjoy your new common room while it’s empty.”  The Headmistress raised an eyebrow and Draco rose from his seat, his hands shaking.

“Thank you,” he said.

She nudged the biscuits towards him, “Take the tin.”


End file.
